Youth ministry failing young people, MPs complain
PERMANENT secretary in the ministry of Youth and Culture, Sherrill O’Reggio Angus, faced a tough sitting of the Human Resource and Social Development Committee of Parliament on Tuesday as Opposition members criticised the youth outreach arm of the ministry for not doing enough to reach more young people.
“You’re failing the young people of this country; you’re not cutting it. We have thousands of unattached young persons — people who just want an opportunity, people who want to know that these programmes work, but they are not working,” Member of Parliament (MP) for St Ann North Eastern Shahinie Robinson lamented after the committee pored over statistics presented by the permanent secretary, which revealed that youth empowerment programmes had impacted only about 30,000 at-risk youth of the country’s estimated 600,000 youth population from 2012 to 2015.
Robinson complained that, in her constituency for example, there was very little interaction by youth information officers with her as the MP for the area. At the same time, Trelawny Southern MP Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert said she is constantly in her constituency and is yet to see any roll-out of the programmes being touted. She demanded that the division submit a detailed report by its next sitting of exactly how funds are spent in each parish.
Meanwhile, the majority of members agreed that youth information centres (YICs) and youth access points, as well as the other initiatives for young people, need to have a much wider reach.
Angus had earlier told the meeting that there are 11 YICs across the parishes of St James, Westmoreland, Manchester, Clarendon, St Ann, St Mary, Portland, Hanover, and the municipality of Portmore working with youth organisations and young persons within the 15-29 age groups.
The chief accounting officer also noted that, although the ministry did not have a database on all unattached youth in the island — another gap noted by the committee — as of this month a needs analysis will be conducted in each parish to determine the current needs of the youth.